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Steven Jarvi, the Kansas City Symphony's assistant conductor, will return to the podium for the Symphony's Christmas Festival.  Jarvi told us this year's Christmas program will have a new approach which will be more like what we can expect to see when the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts opens in 2011.  We asked him what he meant by that, and what the program will sound like when it is performed on the stage of the Lyric Theatre.

David Peironnet: Now, let’s start by taking a look at what you’ve planned for the Symphony’s "Christmas Festival."

Steven Jarvi: We wanted to do something different this year—something in anticipation of the new Helzberg Hall in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, which will be our home beginning next season.

We wanted to focus on us, the Kansas City Symphony, with giant music. This will be a huge musical showcase.

DP: So, no guests? Just the orchestra?

SJ: Certainly not! We will be joined by the Kansas City Symphony Chorus plus the Allegro Children’s Choir, and the Rezound! community handbell ensemble. The Rezound ensemble is made up of fanatics about handbells. They are fantastic.

DP: What’s the program?

SJ: We open with two big fanfare overtures. First, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro overture which will lead directly into Joy to the World. From there, we will go to a choral piece by Franz Biebl. The Allegro Children’s Choir will be in the balcony singing out into the theater.

DP: You’ll really keep things moving!

SJ: Definitely. We’ll bring in the Kansas City Brass Quintet and then a surprise entrance by the Rezound ensemble.

DP: Of course, it’s not so much a surprise now that we know they’re coming.

SJ: You’ll have to come to the concert to see how they do it. The Kansas City Symphony Chorus will come in, then the orchestra will perform music from the films It’s A Wonderful Life and Polar Express.

DP: And, that ends the concert?

SJ: That’s just intermission.

DP: Then, what will you come up with?

 SJ: Radio personality Dick Wilson will read the Night Before Christmas, and there will be a sing-along with Santa. The orchestra will then perform the newest, most florid Hollywood lush arrangements of Christmas music that I could find.

 Concerts with a big orchestral sound were what hooked me on classical music. I grew up in Detroit and remember attending performances of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, and the big orchestral concerts. I’ve never forgotten those. They were big; powerful. Those concerts were packed full of big, lush music. Besides, those arrangements are a perfect way to show off the orchestra.

I know Kansas City will really like this Christmas show!

***

The Kansas City Symphony orchestra, with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus, the Allegro Children’s Choir, the Rezound community handbell ensemble, and the Kansas City Brass Quintet will perform the Christmas Festival. There will be four performances: evening performances on Friday, December 17 and Saturday, December 18 at 7:30 PM both nights; then matinee performances on Saturday, December 18 and Sunday, December 19 at 2 PM both afternoons. All Christmas Festival performances will be at the Lyric Theatre located at 11th & Central in downtown Kansas City.

Tickets are available from the Kansas City Symphony box office by calling 816-471-0400, by visiting the box office at 17th & Wyandotte, or at the Symphony’s web site www.kcsymphony.org

By David Peironnet

Special to KCM

David Peironnet has been a concert-goer for more years than he would care to admit, and can clearly recall hearing the Kansas City Philharmonic under the baton of Hans Schweiger. This comes from someone who admits to be only 24 years old though acknowleges that his undergraduate degree was not in math but rather political science -- a group of people who are notoriously able to see only those facts they want to see in statistical data.

David has churned out the newsletter for the Friends of the Symphony - Kansas City for six or seven years. He doesn't recall and really doesn't care how many years it has been because the only thing that's important is the next deadline -- and the one after that.

This is one of a series of interviews he runs periodically usually consisting of five open-ended questions which reveal answers which can give information to the person walking into a concert hall for the first time, or like himself have been enjoying concerts for many years.

David and Kathy Peironnet frequently work at the Friends of the Symphony gift shop which is located in the lobby of the Lyric Theatre. The next time you come to a concert, stop by and say, "hello." Ask for a copy of the current FoS newsletter. If a copy isn't available, just ask and one will be mailed to you.

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